Thursday, October 9, 2014

After more than forty years, our knowledge of the Bay Area
rock performances of the ‘60s is still growing. Despite the diligent efforts
over the years of researchers and sites like this to compile the histories of
bands and venues, show lists even for the most famous bands are still
incomplete. Some shows remain unknown or forgotten to this day, lasting only in
the memories of a few aging fans.

Our knowledge that a concert took place primarily comes from
posters or newspaper listings from the major cities; but when those aren’t
available or don’t survive, shows can often slip through the cracks and become
“lost,” especially if they were played outside the traditional venues. So when
someone reminisces about the old days and says, for example, “I saw Santana and
Quicksilver play a show at my high school back in ’68,” it can be hard to find
any corroborating dates or details, since such a show can’t be found in any of
the bands’ performance listings:

Nonetheless – in this case, not only was the show played,
but there is quite a lot of information about it, including audience memories,
ticket stubs, photos, and even a short review!

I first heard of this show when corresponding with Randy
Beucus, a graduate of Los Altos High, about various concerts he’d seen. He
commented, “When I was in high school I was able to book Santana and
Quicksilver… I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these high school shows have
been forgotten.”

This show had indeed been forgotten, and I was surprised to
hear that a concert with these two bands had never been reported before.

A search revealed that a few people had mentioned the show
online after all – in fact, it left quite an impression on them. For instance,
on the “Fandalism” site, musicians were asked, “What was the first concert you
ever went to?”

Byron Laursen: “Late 1968 at Los Altos High School,
with my brother, then a teacher, who had to chaperone at a concert featuring
two emergent SF bands... The show was so loud that all I could be sure of was
that the second band was rock-and-roll-y and the first one had some Latin
influence. It was Santana opening for Quicksilver Messenger Service.”http://www.fandalism.com/bytree

Alan Eglington: “The first pro Pop Concert I ever bought
tickets for and attended without adult supervision was, dare I say it? (drum roll
please!) "Chad & Jeremy" (hey! I had a good time so sue me!) at
the Los Altos High School main gym. But to show how
fast things changed…I attended my second pro concert in the same location, the
"Santana Blues Band" opening for "Quicksilver Messenger
Service!" That concert had a huge impact on my personal development,
because soon after I was drumming in my second band. And that band ended up
playing a lot of Santana & Quicksilver material.” http://fandalism.com/eyebone

Eric Weitzmann also mentioned on Facebook, “Santana and
Quicksilver Messenger Service played our high school (Los Altos, Ca.) in 1968. I'll never forget
that show, and still have the ticket stub.”

This was exciting news, and he was able to add further details:
“The show was on Thursday, November 21, 1968. 7:30 pm in the Boys Gym, Los Altos High School. $2.50 for students with
Student Body Cards and $3.00 all others. It was cool, they had a "Light
Show," very psychedelic. The bands sounded really good, it wasn't unusual
for rock bands to play high schools back then because there wasn't the club
venue scene like there is now. I remember waiting in line before the show and
all the guys from Santana walked right by us.”

The show was well-attended, and was quite an event for the
school. “The basketball floor was open for dancing, with
bleacher seating on both sides… I don't recall many parents or hipsters coming.
Mostly, the student body.”

Paradoxically, Randy Beucus, who’d booked
the show, had no memory of it:

“I didn't go, even though it was my senior year in high
school and I was pretty much responsible for putting the show together…
I stayed away from the show even though I helped put it on. I
just couldn't see myself seeing those bands at my high school. I was
seeing both bands anyway [in San
Francisco] around the same time…

“That was the only show that I booked, but I went to a lot
of rock & roll shows from my freshman year in high school, and when I found
out the school had a certain amount of money to get a "big" known San Francisco group to
play, someone contacted me… I must have called one of the Polte brothers (Ron
& Frank) who managed Quicksilver, and maybe the same for Graham who was
managing Santana at the time.”

Santana was booked by Bill Graham’s Millard Agency – Graham
could be reached by phone at the Fillmore for bookings. Quicksilver would have
to be contacted separately – they were booked by the West-Pole agency run by
Ron Polte, who also managed the band. (Frank Polte was their road manager.)

The school’s budget is unknown, but Bill Graham for one was
eager to get high school bookings, as a way of building an audience for his
bands on Millard. One story from the Santanamigos site illustrates this point,
when a show was booked by a San Jose
high school in March ’69: “My friend Jamie called Bill Graham (promoter and
Fillmore owner), and asked for Santana to play. Bill asked how much the student
body had as a budget, and Jamie told him we had $2,500. Bill laughed and said
‘no way,’ Jamie said ‘thank you, we will get someone else.’ Bill called back
within about 10 minutes, and said ‘OK, you can have them and the three other
groups for that price!’”

Corry writes: “It was very much the Millard strategy to put
their bands in the suburbs. They were all Fillmore West openers, so they could
play the 'burbs and advertise truthfully, "Direct From Fillmore
West." It certainly built an audience for Santana. Don't forget that the
rock audience was pretty young… All of the Millard bands also played a lot of
gigs at suburban gyms and movie theaters, that held 700-1000 people. A lot of
parents who weren't going to let their high schoolers drive to San Francisco had no
problem with letting them drive a few miles to a local place.”

It must have been a treat for the Bay Area teens who
couldn’t drive to San Francisco
to have the Fillmore bands come to them.

Santana played quite a few local high school shows in the
year before their first album came out – in fact, the day after this show,
November 22, they would play at Campolindo High in Moraga. Other examples
include:

Mission
San Jose High
School, Fremont (fall '68 dance)

Elizabeth High School, Oakland
10/18/68

Woodside
High School, Woodside
2/11/69

James Lick High School,
San Jose 3/7/69

Washington High School, Fremont
3/8/69

Las Lomas High School, Walnut
Creek 4/1/69

Palo Alto High School, Palo
Alto 6/10/69 (graduation dance)

In contrast, Quicksilver were rarely spotted at high school
shows at this time. They were the more established, well-known band and had
just taken a short cross-country tour in October; whereas Santana would barely
leave California
until the summer of ’69. Making this booking even more unusual, this was to be
one of Quicksilver’s last appearances before Gary Duncan left the band in
January ‘69, effectively leaving Quicksilver in limbo for another year before
he rejoined.

This was an unusually high-profile booking for Los Altos
High, which typically had less well-known local bands play its dances. For
instance, the Homecoming dance in ’68 was played by The People (fresh from
their regional hit “I Love You”), and the prom dance in ’69 featured the
Syndicate of Sound (still best-known for their ’66 hit “Little Girl”) – both
popular San Jose bands who’d been in the charts, though not the kind of acts
you’d see at the Fillmore.

Randy mentions: “I tried to have Paul Butterfield to play my
high school the year before…but when I called Albert Grossman, the price he
wanted for the Butterfield Blues Band was higher than the school could pay
for.”

Other concerts at Los Altos High from ’66-70 were played by
such local groups as the Tribesmen, the Lord Jim Quartet, Bogus Thunder, New
Dawn, Green Catherine, and Gropus Cackus, and others even more obscure, or
still in high school – we only know of these since they were pictured in
yearbooks. (Chad & Jeremy’s show there is still fondly remembered by some
grads, though!)

As a big show for the school, you might wonder if the
Santana/QMS concert was mentioned in the school yearbook, the Excalibur. I was
thrilled to find out that the show actually got a two-page spread in the 1969
yearbook, with photos and a brief report:

Pictures courtesy of Randy, who observes: “Notice the mistakes in names for the
members of Santana. The yearbook company got into trouble for adding the
balloon caption over Duncan's
head!”

In an odd case of misreporting, the Santana bandmembers’
names are totally mistaken. In reality, the bass player was David Brown; the
drummer was Bob “Doc” Livingston; and the
percussionist was Marcus Malone. (Livingston and Malone were soon to leave the
band within the next few months.)

The yearbook culprit who had Gary Duncan saying “I’m so
sweet” has not yet been found.

The text:

Shades of Quicksilver and Santana

“The sometimes annual fall concert featured the sounds of
“Quicksilver Messenger Service” and “Santana” and the lights of Mr. What. The
barrier between performers and the sizable audience of 2000 was broken when
members of Quicksilver asked some of the listeners to come closer and sit on
the floor. Although given second billing, Santana drew the admiration of many,
and their blues sound was widely considered better than the rock of
Quicksilver.”

It’s interesting that the relatively unknown Santana proved
more popular with the audience. Quicksilver had one album out, but Santana had
not yet recorded and their first album wouldn’t be released until October ’69,
so they were perhaps known mostly by their live reputation. Some students might
already have seen a few of the many San
Francisco shows Santana had played that year.

On the other hand, Santana’s band and its “Latin influence” may
also have seemed more fresh and new to older listeners than Quicksilver, who
had been playing the same small repertoire all year.

Santana’s “blues sound” is mentioned – at the time they were
sometimes still billed as the “Santana Blues Band.” (Though they’d shortened
their band name back in the summer, show posters outside of San Francisco still kept the older name.)

Randy wrote: “As I recall I was told that the bands only
played one set each. At that time Quicksilver's first sets were nothing
special. Kind of like the Dead, they really came alive in their second sets.”

Quicksilver’s request to the audience to “come closer and
sit on the floor” is also striking. Perhaps they were having trouble ‘coming
alive’ – one wonders why this empty floor wasn’t filled with dancers?

But that reminds me of a recent eyewitness memory of a somewhat older crowd at the
Dead/Quicksilver show at South Oregon College
in Ashland, Feb
4 ’68: “I was there and it seemed the only ones dancing were the ones that had
a fair amount of LSD in our systems (far too many folks were sitting on the floor
with their mouths agape).”

Scheduled for 7:30, the concert probably did not run very late. As the opener on a weeknight high-school show Santana’s set
may have been short, but their setlist was probably similar to the Fillmore
West sets from the next month released as “Live at the Fillmore ’68.” Quicksilver’s
setlist was most likely much the same as at their famed Fillmore West run
earlier in November, partly used on the Happy Trails album and later
circulating on tapes and bootlegs:

So it’s easy to imagine what the show must
have sounded like in the crowded gym.

Mr. What also did the light show at Santana’s 2/11/69
Woodside High concert, but I haven’t seen them listed elsewhere.

At any rate, the bands were loud, the light-show
psychedelic, the gym converted to a mini-Fillmore for the night, and the
experience was burned in students’ memories. No doubt before long many of them
were heading off to San Francisco
to see more rock shows.

While it would be nice to report that this show passed into Los Altos legend, oddly
enough, any word of it instead soon vanished into the fog of the sixties. No
ads or posters have survived, no press listings were found; and the yearbook
spread appears to have remained unknown outside the student body. As a result,
only those who attended remembered that it ever took place.

It’s possible more memories of this show may come to light,
now that this article has been posted. Los Altos High also had a biweekly
newspaper, the Lance, which may well have run an article on the show, if anyone
has access to issues from November ’68…

Two related posts worth checking out:

A description of a Santana/Quicksilver show with the Dead at Winterland a
month later (and “so sweet” Gary Duncan’s last appearance with
Quicksilver for a year) -